Why caregivers of people with dementia don\u27t utilise out-of-home respite services

Carers of people with dementia consistently report an unmet need for respite. Despite this, the overall proportion of carers who utilise available day centre, in-home and residential respite programs tends to be low and, even then, use is often delayed and only at very low intensities. In order to support carers in appropriate and supportive use of respite services, program planners and service providers need a good understanding of the factors influencing use and non-use of respite services. With this in mind, a community based survey of 152 help-seeking caregivers of people with dementia (NSW, Australia) was undertaken to establish what variables make the use of use of day, in-home and residential respite services difficult for caregivers. Results from multivariate logistic regression of survey data reveal that factors such as refusal of the person with dementia to attend services, and low perceived utility of services for the care recipient with dementia, are significantly correlated with caregivers not utilising available services for respite. Such results highlight that whilst the focus of respite services has legitimately emphasised the needs of caregivers for a break, low utilisation of services is likely to persist unless caregivers believe that service use will also be acceptable and of benefit to the person with dementia to whom they provide care

Integration of NOS Instruction into a Physical Science Content Course for Elementary Teachers: Enhancing Efforts of Teacher Education Programs?

This conference paper was presented at the 2005 NARST Annual Meeting in Dallas, TX.This study investigated the effectiveness of integrating explicit-and-reflective NOS instruction into a physics course for pre-service elementary teachers. Reflective discussions, student scenarios, and content-generic NOS activities were incorporated into both lecture and laboratory components of the course. The VNOS-C was used to assess students' views of NOS prior to and upon completion of the course. Significant and favorable changes in students' views were evident for all the aspects of NOS emphasized, however there were also negative shifts in views apparent in students' views of the socio-cultural embeddedness of science. While positive changes in NOS views resulted from the explicit-and-reflective interventions, there is also evidence that implicit messages about NOS played a role in the development of students' ideas. The results of this study suggest that content courses may be a productive venue for improving preservice teachers' views of NOS

Applying knowledge translation concepts and strategies in dementia care education for health professionals: recommendations from a narrative literature review

Introduction: Dementia education programs are being developed for health professionals, but with limited guidance about what works in design and content to promote best practice in dementia care. Knowledge translation (KT) is a conceptual framework for putting evidence to work in health care. This narrative literature review examined the question: What does the field KT offer, conceptually and practically, for education of health professionals in dementia care? It seeks to identify the types of strategies currently used within education to facilitate effective KT for the wide range of health professionals who may be involved in the care of people with dementia, plus explore enablers and barriers to KT in this context. Methods: From 76 articles identified in academic databases and manual bibliographic searching, 22 met review criteria. Results: The literature synthesis indicated four hallmarks of successful KT-oriented dementia education for health professionals: (1) multimodal delivery, (2) tailored approaches, (3) relationship building, and (4) organizational support for change in the work setting. Participatory action frameworks were also favored, based on interactive knowledge exchange (eg, blended learning) rather than passive unidirectional approaches alone (eg, lectures). Discussion: The following six principles are proposed for educating health professionals in dementia care: (1) Match the education strategy to the KT goal and learner preferences; (2) Use integrated multimodal learning strategies and provide opportunities for multiple learning exposures plus feedback; (3) Build relationships to bridge the research-practice gap; (4) Use a simple compelling message with formats and technologies relevant to the audience; (5) Provide incentives to achieve KT goals; and (6) Plan to change the workplace, not just the individual health professional

Data granularity and the optimal planning of distributed generation

Hervorming Sociale Regelgevin

A psychological resilience briefing intervention for helicopter emergency medical service observers

Objective Helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) observers may be at risk of negative psychological effects associated with exposure to traumatic events during shifts. This article describes a quality improvement project for HEMS observers at Essex & Herts Air Ambulance. Methods A psychological resilience briefing intervention (PRBi) was developed and delivered during induction training with 60 HEMS observers. The PRBi aimed to raise awareness of traumatic events that observers may experience and provided basic education on 5 domains, including likely forms of trauma exposure, possible psychological reactions, advice on coping strategies and supporting colleagues, and resources that they could use if required. The intervention was intended to bolster resilience and reduce posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, and to encourage adaptive coping styles in observers. Results Observers learned from and valued the PRBi; statistically significant increases were observed in awareness of the 5 domains from pre- to post-delivery, and free-text responses cited a variety of benefits to the observers. There was no indication that the PRBi caused harm. Conclusion The PRBi has now been included in the routine induction of observers at Essex & Herts Air Ambulance and has the potential to be repurposed for use in other settings, including medical schools

Lecture capture: Practical recommendations for students and instructors

In this article, we provide practical recommendations to help promote self-regulated strategies for the use of lecture capture for both students and instructors. For students, we suggest that the importance of attendance and effective note-taking should be reinforced, as well as specifying how lecture capture can best be used as a catch-up or revision aid. For instructors, we highlight the need to provide guidance for students on how to learn and to adopt a context-dependent approach to lecture capture based on pedagogical considerations, rather than all-or-nothing. Regarding the issue of the relationship between lecture capture and attendance, we suggest the focus should move to a more nuanced discussion of why students fail to attend lectures and how they are using lecture capture. Finally, we discuss other concerns commonly raised by instructors related to lecture capture. Our student guidance is available for dissemination in infographic form at https://osf.io/esd2q/files/

Can dementia-friendly initiatives improve people’s lives?

The publication last month (August 2021) of the World Health Organization’s toolkit for creating a dementia-friendly society marks the latest step in the coordination of a worldwide effort to tackle dementia as a global health challenge. But what does dementia-friendliness mean in practice, and whose purposes and interests do these initiatives ultimately serve

Participatory social network map making with family carers of people living with dementia

This article focuses on the use of a participatory social network mapping method with family carers. This is one of a suite of methods developed in a 5-year qualitative multi-centre project exploring how neighbourhoods support, enable or disable people with dementia and their families to live well in their communities. The article considers how mapping provides insights into family support networks, revealing the fluidity of support and care within relationships as well as providing opportunity for individuals to represent the complexities of their relationships with more and less significant others. However, the potential offered by the approach goes beyond those of visual representations of networks and contacts. Paying attention to the co-production process, as well as the reflexive dialogue that emerges in the exchange between researcher, participants, and the maps themselves, we consider how the maps emerge as affective artifacts, weighted with emotion